Come Sit Stay
by shelvesinthecloset
Summary: Kiba and Ino both like each other, although neither will admit it. Instead they settle for annoying one another. How do things change when they make a bet?


AN: I'm still not entirely certain I like this story, although I do like the pairing. I'll probably end up writing another one with this pairing to do them justice. Anyways, here it is, the little idea that wouldn't leave me the hell alone until I published it...

**Come. Sit. Stay.**

**The Bet.**

"Oh, go away already dog boy," Ino sighed. "Can't you see we were having a private conversation?

Kiba had been walking Akamaru when he had noticed Ino and Sakura standing around and talking. He had just gone over to say hello, but somehow the conversation had rapidly degenerated into a fight. He and Ino never had been able to get along, their personalities were too explosive. It was kind of a pity, Kiba thought, she was easily the prettiest girl he knew.

"I have just as much right to be here as you. Why don't you leave?"

"I was here first," she said, arching an eyebrow at him as if he were a complete moron.

"Well I have to walk my dog."

"Then walk your dog, don't stand around here like a lost puppy," she said as she turned her back to him and resumed her conversation with Sakura. Kiba sat there fuming for a moment before he turned and stomped off. One of these days he was going to get her.

* * *

"You stupid dog!" Ino screamed at him, furious. Of course, anyone who thought about it would realize that this wasn't really an insult. Dogs are loyal, happy, playful, and _cute_ – at least according to Ino.

Kiba, however, does not know this. And he hates how people call him a dog. He's a _man_, damn it. Just because he likes dogs and has a beast mimicry jutsu does not make him any less human.

"I'm not a bloody dog!" he shouted back. It probably wouldn't have bothered him so much if it had been anyone but Ino who had said that to him. But it was Ino, and for some reason, he really wanted to make sure she thought of him as a man.

"Then don't act like one!" she shrieked.

Kiba had been practicing his beast mimicry jutsu when he'd run into Ino. Run into her and knocked her down. Of course, it had rained last night and so she had gone sprawling into the mud. He considered pointing out that as a kunoichi, she should be more alert and not let people sneak up on her like that, but one look at her angry face convinced him he did not want to make her any more annoyed with him than she already was. Not that Kiba could really blame her for being mad, he'd be mad too, but just because she was muddy was no reason to call him a dog. Sure, he liked dogs, but he wasn't one.

Since Kiba _had_ been practicing beast mimicry there wasn't a whole lot he could say to her accusation. But he was Kiba, so he did anyway. "I was practicing my jutsu."

"And running into people who just happen to be taking a short cut through the park is part of your jutsu how exactly?"

"Er-" come to think of it, why _had_ he run into her? He had a vague recollection of wanting to surprise her, to get her back for how she always made him feel so stupid. Kiba was nothing if not a creature of impulse.

"Never mind," she sighed wearily. She must be really tired, because she's never let Kiba off the hook that easily before. "It doesn't matter. Boys will be boys and dogs will be dogs," she mumbled, turning to head home as she tried to brush some of the mud off of her clothes.

"I am not a dog," Kiba repeated, but this time his voice was low and a little bit dangerous.

"Fine. But you act exactly like one, so I don't really see much of a difference," Ino shot back. "You'd probably roll over on command."

"I don't follow anyone's commands!" Kiba shouted.

"No?" Ino asked. If Kiba had been paying attention he would have noticed a glint of mischief in her eyes that replaced the usual anger. "Roll-over," she said firmly, and then quickly flashed her fingers through the symbols for her mind control jutsu.

When Kiba was back in possession of his body he was lying on the ground on his back (he had obviously been forced to obey her command), and Ino was doubled up with laughter.

"That was a cheap shot!" Kiba said angrily as he got up. "It doesn't count if you use your jutsu – and I never would have listened to you if it weren't for that!"

"Are you sure?" Ino grinned, thoroughly thrilled with her own cleverness.

"Yes," Kiba growled.

"Fine then," she said, growing serious. "Tell you what. If I don't get you to come, sit, and stay on command at some point during the next week, I promise I will never call you any dog related names ever again."

Kiba looked at her warily. "No jutsus?"

"No jutsus," she promised him.

"Deal," Kiba said, extending his hand.

"Ah, but you didn't hear the next bit. If I do get you to listen, then you can't ever complain about me calling you dog again."

Kiba hesitated for a moment, but then realized that this bet was totally in his favour. There was no way he could lose, he would never blindly obey Ino's commands. What was there to worry about? He nodded his consent, and Ino grinned and shook his hand.

"See you tomorrow dog boy," Ino called over her shoulder to him after she'd turned to walk away. Kiba suppressed the urge to growl at her.

**Come**.

Ino couldn't hold in a giggle as she made her way to Konoha's gate to begin her mission. This was just too perfect. She wasn't really sure what had caused her to make that bet with Kiba yesterday, but she hated it when people called using her jutsu cheating. It wasn't cheating, it was using her skills – skills that had taken her years to master – just like any other shinobi.

And now she had this mission with him – just the two of them. She'd find a way to make him listen to her, no matter what!

Kiba hid a moan as he stood at the gate, waiting. A mission with _her_ was the worst possible scenario right now. You had to listen to your teammate when in battle. Taking a deep, steadying breath Kiba calmed himself down. This was no big deal, he'd just have to make sure he didn't respond to the orders come, sit, and stay.

Ino saw Kiba and Akamaru waiting for her at the gate and pouted. She'd wanted to get there before them! All well, time to put her plan into action. She ran past Kiba and stopped a few meters past him, just a bit outside of Konoha.

"Kiba, come!" she said as she turned back to look back at him...or at least the empty space where he used to be.

"Looking for me?" a voice called out from behind her. Turning again she narrowed her eyes in a glare at him. Kiba grinned at her. He was faster than her by a long shot, and his nose had alerted him to her presence. She should have known better.

Kiba's grin slipped off his face when the blonde in front of him replaced her glare with a smile.

"Can't blame a girl for trying," she said cheerily. "Let's go!"

She was plotting something, Kiba was sure. He just didn't know what.

Obviously, Kiba was going to be careful. Ino decided if she wanted to get him to lose she'd have to catch him off guard. So she was going to take a risk and not order him around for a few days. Well, that wasn't quite true. She was going to order him around plenty – it's what she does, after all – but she'd be very careful to avoid orders of the come, sit and stay variety. Then she'd throw one at him out of no where and win! Ha! It was perfect.

--

The mission was successful, and Kiba couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief when it was over. He and Ino were beginning their journey back to Konoha, the blonde walking a few meters in front of him.

The mission had been – stressful. Oh, locating the target and retrieving the information had been easy enough. Ino had even been mature enough to not pull a command on him in the middle of the mission. Oh, no – the problem had been Ino herself. Not that she'd done anything wrong, she was just – Ino. Beautiful, teasing, deadly - and so far out of his reach. The 'target' for their mission had been male, and Ino (who's job was the actual extraction of the information) had shown Kiba just exactly what she was capable of.

When she'd outlined her plan for him, it had seemed deceptively simple. Step One – get the target on his own. Step Two – extract information. Of course to get the target on his own Ino had employed what she called her greatest weapon – seduction. Kiba had snorted and asked if perhaps she was overestimating herself. He'd expected her to get mad at him, not smirk and walk away.

Of course, her plan had worked perfectly. She'd walked into the club the target frequented a half hour after Kiba had established his position at the bar, and sat by herself in a corner. Kiba was wondering how the hell she expected this to work and wondering why her ego was so big. After about ten minutes of nothing happening he'd given up and walked over to her seat.

What he didn't know was she'd been counting on that. After loudly turning him down (he hadn't even asked anything of her, damn it) Kiba had stormed off, embarrassed. When guilt had consumed him enough to make him head back, tail between his legs, to make sure she was alright he'd stopped at the street across from the club frozen in shock. There was Ino, pinned to the wall in the alley by none other than their target. She looked like she was enjoying herself too, if the sounds coming from the two were any indication. Then he saw her hands wrap around his neck and flash through some symbols, and the target collapsed.

"Took you long enough," she said to Kiba, before stepping over the man's inert body and signaling Kiba to pick it up. He did and they'd taken the man out to the woods.

This was where he's seen a side of the blonde he never would have expected. Ino was brutal. She didn't use her clan jutsu at first like he had expected, instead she relied on more traditional techniques – breaking fingers, jamming things under his nails, fire, a blow to his groin - the man was writhing with agony and Kiba was almost afraid of Ino. Of course, that just made him feel more attracted to her.

It wasn't until all those techniques had failed that Ino had sighed, shaken her head regretfully, and performed the shintenshin no jutsu.

As they left the man lying unconscious in the woods Kiba asked her why she hadn't just done that to begin with. Her reply – using the shintenshin to extract information was far worse than anything she had done previously. The man was now officially insane.

Although Kiba was correct in his statement that he was in fact a man, and not a dog, he did share many traits with his canine friends. For one, he liked a strong female. Seeing Ino Yamanaka on a mission had not helped to cure his growing and grudging admiration of the woman. Kiba also enjoyed playing and otherwise rough-housing. Perhaps this is why the two got side-tracked on the way home playing a rousing game of hide-and-go-seek tag. The game was childish, to be sure, but after the seriousness of the mission they both found the innocent game entirely relaxing.

Of course Kiba was winning by a long shot, what with his superior senses, but he still found hunting and capturing the beautiful blonde to be incredibly enjoyable.

It was Ino's turn and she was looking for Kiba. She'd tried sensing his chakra, but like any good ninja Kiba was masking it. Luckily for her, Akamaru chose that exact moment to bark. Giggling she pivoted on the spot and jumped to Kiba's location, crashing through the bush he was landing in and ending up partially on his lap.

"Got ya!" she said.

Kiba couldn't help but grin in response, and he quickly rolled over so he was on top.

"Now I've got yo-" the dog-nin started to say, but Ino quickly wriggled free of his hold.

"Come!" she shouted at him as she ran laughingly away.

Kiba, caught up in the moment, followed her intuitively, forgetting that today was the last day of the designated week.

It wasn't many steps later that Ino whirled around and stood there, waiting for Kiba. He caught up, looking confused. Ino merely arched an eyebrow at him and smirked, waiting for his mind to catch up.

When it did he wasn't pleased. "You – you tricked me!" he protested. Ino's smirk just widened.

**Sit.**

All of a sudden Kiba stiffened and darted around Ino, kunai drawn. A baffled Ino spun around so her gaze could follow him only to meet met with a slightly tragic sight. Kiba was on the ground with a kunai in his arm and shuriken in his stomach. Instantly alerted, and very angry that these shinobi had managed to sneak up on her _and_ injure Kiba – who was hers even if he didn't know it yet – Ino had her own weapon drawn and stood in front of Kiba while Akamaru guarded his back.

Two ninja emerged from the trees, abandoning their cover to leer at the weak kunoichi.

Ino eyed them carefully. They were obviously rogue-nin, but they weren't very good. Ino could tell from their stance and the way their weapons hit Kiba. They probably thought this battle was over – Ino held in her smirk and placed a terrified look on her face.

"Well what have we here?" one man smirked.

"She looks mighty pretty," the other one commented. "Maybe we should play a bit before we kill them and take their valuables."

"P-p-please, don't – please leave us alone," Ino whimpered, eyes wide with fear.

Kiba let out a long, low growl and attempted to rise back up. Ino subtly shifted her foot behind her and kicked him in the stomach, causing him to collapse back onto the ground with a groan.

"Looks like we got your boyfriend there pretty good," the first one commented.

The two rogue ninja had been moving steadily closer to Ino, who was shrinking back in terror while measuring the distance between them thoughtfully.

"And 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1," she whispered under her breath, but Kiba of course heard and looked up, curious.

Ino's hand formed her clan's hand sign, but it was subtly altered with some fingers curled in instead. Silently her scared stance shifted to a fighting one and her face was filled with confidence. The two men halted, wondering what was wrong and whether or not they should proceed.

"Too late," she smirked before silently thinking the trigger phrase.

Both of the rather large, brutish men collapsed onto the ground holding their heads and screaming in pain and terror.

"Wh-what did you do?" Kiba asked, curious.

"Trapped them in their nightmares for the next twenty-four hours," Ino said with a shrug. "The genjutsu is unbreakable when combined with my family trait."

"Will they be okay?" he asked, almost pitying the two men.

"Those with a strong mind and will would survive, but those two will probably kill themselves or go insane – maybe both," she said carelessly. "Let's pull those weapons out of you and I'll finish patching you up when we're back in Konoha and guaranteed safety."

Kiba silently nodded in agreement and after the weapons were removed they leaped off into the night.

When they reached Ino's apartment she busied herself gathering the necessary materials both for dinner and for healing Kiba. Kiba stood awkwardly in the corner, not feeling comfortable at all alone with Ino in her apartment or in the kitchen – it was such a feminine place. When supper was cooking Ino spread her healing supplies out on the table.

"Sit," she said absentmindedly. It wasn't until Kiba had complied that what had just happened dawned on the two of them and Kiba jumped up again in protest.

"Hey!" he shouted indignantly. "I'm injured here, play fair!"

Ino just smirked at him – it actually had been unintentional but she sure as hell planned on taking advantage of it.

**Stay.**

"Oh stop whining already and sit down again so I can heal you," she said impatiently.

"Fine," Kiba grumbled, eyeing her warily as he resumed his seat.

"Take your shirt off," Ino said calmly before heading to the counter to chop up some more vegetables.

"What?" Kiba asked shocked.

"You want me to heal you, don't you?" she asked, turning back to look at him. When Kiba still looked hesitant she dropped the knife she'd been dicing with and swayed towards him. "Trust me," she whispered in his ear. "If I wanted to have my way with you I'd have ripped it off my self long ago." Kiba jerked his head away from her, his face redder than a ripe tomato.

When Ino had returned her attention to the vegetables Kiba pulled off his shirt and threw it to the ground. Akamaru, who had been sitting in the corner of the kitchen went to sniff it and then picked it up and brought it back to his spot – he knew his master and Kiba would probably forget it.

For her part, Ino had decided to deal with this whole situation in as professional a manner as possible. Sure she liked the dog-boy, she had for a while now, but he was injured and her duty as a medic-nin must come first. She could flirt with him after…

However, all of her good intentions were completely blown out of her mind when she turned back around to begin healing him. Kiba was hot! Well, she'd always thought that, but for Kami's sake his chest! Reigning in a furious blush Ino walked towards the table and began cleaning and bandaging Kiba's arm. That would give her some time to prepare herself to work on his stomach wound.

When the arm was finished she took a steadying breath and got up from where she'd been kneeling on the floor. Looking at the wound on his chest area she realized that the easiest way to heal it would be to sit…

So that's exactly what Ino did. She seated herself on Kiba's lap, facing him and straddling him.

"What?" Kiba said, trying to stand up. Rooting herself in place with chakra Ino glared at him.

"Stay put so I can heal you."

"Only if this doesn't count as stay," he countered.

"Fine, it doesn't count. Just stay still before you make this any worse."

Kiba concentrated on breathing, having given up on being rid of the blush that stained his cheeks. Ino's hands moving up and down his chest felt wonderful…

Ino made sure to focus all her attention on healing Kiba, not wanting to forget what she was doing. But then she was finished and she looked up into his face and her breath caught in her throat. He was looking at her like – well she wasn't entirely certain but she knew she'd never been looked at like this before. She leaned her head forward as Kiba's mouth started tilting towards hers.

A hair's breadth from his lips she stopped. "Stay?" she whispered, half begging, half pleading.

They both knew that she meant more that just right now. It was her way of asking him to be around for a long while. So Kiba swallowed his pride, nodded, and then captured her lips with his.

When they separated minutes later they just grinned at each other foolishly.

"Not bad for a mutt," Ino said, unable to resist rubbing in the fact that she had won.

Kiba growled, feeling understandably hurt and a little betrayed.

"Relax," Ino giggled. "I've always liked dogs."

Kiba felt slightly mollified. How come he'd never noticed that earlier? However, he was still upset, and so he took Ino's lips once more, standing her up and backing her against a wall as he took control of the kiss and reminded Ino that he was very much a man.

* * *

Reviews are appreciated!


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